Category: Communication

Repealing Godwin’s Law

Dont mention the law

Don't mention the law

I mentioned Godwin’s Law in the last post. It’s an interesting law – originally coined by Mike Godwin in 1990 to address the trend of usenet users throwing Hitler into arguments.

Originally expressed Godwin’s Law read:
“As an online discussion continues, the probability of a reference or comparison to Hitler or to Nazis approaches 1”

The basic application of the law was that the first person to mention Hitler lost the argument.
Godwin has an interesting explanation of his side of the story here.

“Although deliberately framed as if it were a law of nature or of mathematics, its purpose has always been rhetorical and pedagogical: I wanted folks who glibly compared someone else to Hitler or to Nazis to think a bit harder about the Holocaust.”

“I understood instantly the connection between the humiliations inflicted there and the ones the Nazis imposed upon death camp inmates—but I am the one person in the world least able to draw attention to that valid comparison.”

The problem with people blindly accusing people of breaking Godwin’s Law is that they’re going by the letter and not the spirit of the law. This probably only happens to me, because I engage in frivolous discussion with art studenty type geeks people… the kind of people who know what Godwin’s Law is to begin with.

There’s another article on pretty much the same thing here. That argues the repeal on the basis that Hitler should be fair game as a test case in arguments.

“The rules of snippy online debates, though, are nothing compared to public discourse. The Anti-Defamation League has beaten the hell out of anyone who’s dared use a Nazi analogy over the last decade. ”

“Thus, despite all efforts at regulation, the market has repeatedly decided in favor of the N-bomb. There simply isn’t any other tableau, in history or fiction, that offers the same variety of evil and oppressive examples as the Third Reich. Why compare some propaganda to 1984 and some slaughter to Srebrenica when you can double down and link both of them to Nazism?”

Santagram

Uncle Santa needs you

Uncle Santa needs you

According to some Christian’s it’s no coincidence that Santa is an anagram of Satan. My wife doesn’t think fondly of St Nick. Who by all accounts was a lovely guy who anonymously and generously gave to the poor and downtrodden of his community.

There’s a long and passionate debate regarding the evils of Santa – and specifically the evils of teaching your kids about Santa. Is it a lie? Probably. But I’m not overly worried by it – if you’re going to tar all “fiction” with the same brush then go for it. Hate Santa, as much as you hate Harry Potter. Ironically, Harry Potter is probably considered evil by most people who hate Santa.

The other refrain as commonly heard as “Jingle Bells” at this time of year is that Christmas has been commercialised. That commercialisation is evil. That modern Christmas has been stripped of its meaning. Well yes. Christmas is commercial. That’s no reason not to support it. Particularly this year. Christmas means jobs. We’re facing the “economic downturn” since the great depression. Jobs are good. Spending money is good. Do it wisely.

I wonder sometimes if our spirit of Christmas protectionism – it’s our holiday and you guys can only celebrate it if you remember our God – damages what could be a great PR opportunity for the church. People are generally thinking nice things about us Christians at this time of year – we get them a “holy day”, they sing carols that often contain the gospel message. And here’s the church, harping on about commercialisation.

Did you know that in Scotland Christmas was banned for almost 400 years – right up until the early 20th century. In fact – the good old Presbyterians were so keen on the ban, they made their signing of a treaty with England contingent on its introduction there.

Scottish Presbyterians, when called on for support by the Puritans of the English Parliament in 1644, did so on the understanding that their allies would in exchange impose the ban on Christmas. For over a decade traditional English Christmas festivities were prohibited

Really. A ban on Christmas. That’s a public relations disaster. Like the “war on Christmas” being waged throughout churches world wide now.

Christmas in Australia is big business. $37.2 billion worth of business. If you divide that by the average Australian wage – or an aggregated household average wage of $115,000 – that’s 328,000 households who keep their jobs because of Christmas (unless I’ve got my zeroes wrong in the billions bit of the calculation… it’s nine in Australia right?). In very poor economic modelling. Of course, retail workers earn less per hour than the “average wage” – which probably means more jobs rather than less… and because we import a lot of the stuff being bought and sold a lot of the money leaves the country, and trickle down economics is dead… anyway. Christmas means jobs. Christmas means food on the table for families this Christmas.

In a second set of calculations – Mastercard reckons the average Australian spent $800 on Christmas last year. That comes up with a figure about half that of the above methodology. 20 million people, multiplied by $800 is $16 billion, which works out to 320,000 jobs paid at $50,000 per year – nice round figures. Whichever way you look at it – Christmas means jobs.

Unemployment is set to surge. Be a good citizen. Celebrate Christmas in the spirit of St Nick – who gave generously and anonymously. And buy me something useless from here… oh wait, that’s a Japanese site. In a slightly related note – the CASE blog has an interesting post about “ethical shopping” that’s worth taking into account. It’s not that fair trade garbage that has taken over people’s sensibilities when it comes to coffee – it’s just biblical advice for shopping with a clean conscience.

For those of you unconvinced by my argument – or more convinced by this (satire warning) those of you who want your children to believe Santa is evil – here’s an evil Santa generator – if you put pictures of Evil Santa all round your house your child will thank you for it later – and be much less messed up than they would be were they to believe in Santa. What do I know anyway, I’m not a parent yet.

Fake ID

Rules for public Christianity 101 – If you’re going to put a stupid Jesus fish on your car – don’t put it under a massive advertisement for your fake ID business.

Want faith with that?

Want faith with that?

Clearly the guy behind this business isn’t the smartest cookie in the Cookie Man store (mmm cookie man, incidently Townsville has a combined Cookie Man and Baskin-Robbins the two nicest smelling franchises in the world)… anyway. If you’re going to have a Jesus fish on your car:

  1. Don’t advertise an illegal enterprise.
  2. Don’t swear when a light turns red (in case of lip readers).
  3. Don’t speed.
  4. Don’t partake in road rage.
  5. Don’t tailgate.
  6. Don’t honk your horn.
  7. Don’t extend your middle finger in another driver’s direction.
  8. Don’t talk on your mobile phone.
  9. Don’t cut in front of anyone.
  10. Make sure you give way to pedestrians, let other people in at busy intersections, and let people change lanes when they’re indicating.

These are all reasons not for me to put a stupid Jesus fish sticker on my car. And probably for you not to put one on yours. Here are some reasons you shouldn’t have a Jesus Fish on your car from urban dictionary. If you want people to know you’re a Christian – tell them the gospel. Or wear a good novelty T-Shirt.

Wise man’s house

The wise man built his house upon the rock

The wise man built his house upon the rock

The rains came down and the floods came up. Hurricane Ike took out the neighbours – but this house stood strong. If I was the builder, and I was designing my brochures for the new year – this photo would be the “hero image”.

The year in photos

 

Buildings and debris are seen floating in the Cedar River against a railroad bridge Saturday, June 14, 2008, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Days after it rose out of its banks on its way to record flooding in Cedar Rapids, the Cedar River has forced at least 24,000 people from their homes, emergency officials said. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Buildings and debris are seen floating in the Cedar River against a railroad bridge Saturday, June 14, 2008, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Days after it rose out of its banks on its way to record flooding in Cedar Rapids, the Cedar River has forced at least 24,000 people from their homes, emergency officials said. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

A collection of pretty awesome photos from Boston.com

On shoes

Lesson in PR from this week:
If you can dodge a journalist’s questions with consumate ease – you
should be expected to be able to dodge their shoe with the same, if
not more, ease. George Bush has obviously learned that lesson early.
He handled that situation with grace and composure. The reporter
probably deserved a tongue lashing – he’ll be lucky to be spared a
literal lashing in Iraq. Ironically, if Saddam was still in power he
probably would have been executed. That’s the best shoe pun I could
come up with because the Facebook George Bush already used “sole
searching.” The Facebook George Bush is not me.

Wikipedia has some interesting things to say about shoe tossing. Including an
interesting look at “shoefiti” the act of throwing shoes onto a
telegraph wire. Which I was always told was to indicate drugs could be
bought nearby.

Plumbing the depths

Joe the Plumber became a national hero for the Republicans for having a go at Obama while he was on the campaign trail. He became a Republican icon, joining McCain on the campaign trail to provide an “everyman” touch. He got himself a nice little book deal in the process.

Apparently he’s not overly impressed with the republicans – that’s the problem with loose cannons. Friendly fire hurts.

“The Republicans didn’t put out a candidate for us to really vote for. It’s the lesser of two evils. When you get to that level, you’ve compromised your principles, you’ve compromised your values so often and you owe your soul to whatever special interest group or lobbyist has padded your campaign finances and everything else that you no longer are your own man. So you can no longer stand on your own feet because they’ve been cut out from underneath you years ago.”

That came from this radio interview – where he talks up Palin, plans to start a watchdog group, and gets into some nitty gritty political science.

Well, you know, it really depends on the other 2/3 of Americans that didn’t vote, Glenn. They are so disenfranchised with the political system currently, they don’t feel they have a voice or that their vote even counts. So they stay home on election day. It really depends on them people, if they are going to actually get off their duff and become educated and get involved.

Two thirds of Americans didn’t vote? I can only assume he’s talking about registered voters. And two thirds of them voted – by all estimates – the compilation of results doesn’t actually get released officially until the 15th.

I guess there’s a PR lesson in here – if you’re going to spruik an ally for their harranguing of the opposition you better make sure they’re actually on your side. Your enemy’s enemy is not necessarily your friend afterall.

Rules of Engagement

Somehow our generic work address was added to the Citizen’s Electoral Council spam list. They send out conspiracy theories media releases on world events. I’ve never seen any picked up anywhere – except perhaps in their own newsletters, and in blogs mocking them.

PR rule number one – if you saturate the market with inane media releases you kill your credibility. It’s a “boy who cried wolf” situation – nobody will ever take you seriously if you comment on everything without having established credibility first.

Commenting on everything is a legitimate strategy – but only if a) you’re running for office, b) you’re not a loony, or c) you’re saying something about something that people vaguely care about.

Today’s CEC missive is about the Mumbai terrorist attacks. It wasn’t Pakistan. It wasn’t Islamic militants. It was the British.

“On Nov. 28 Lyndon LaRouche stated that it is absolutely clear that the British are behind the terror attack in Mumbai‚ India. Early press reports originating in India indicated that at least two of the terrorists captured alive by Indian security forces‚ and possibly several in total‚ were British-born Pakistanis. LaRouche commented that this phenomenon is suggestively similar to the number of Saudis who were involved in the 9/11 attacks in the United States in 2001.”

Comparisons to 9/11 must surely be the new Godwin’s Law. In fact, 92 articles on the CEC website mention Hitler. They’ve jumped the Godwin shark.

PR rule number 2 – don’t mention Hitler or 9/11 in your articles if you want to be credible.

The Citizen’s Electoral Council get their inspiration from perennial American presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche.

His Wikipedia bio says:

“There are sharply contrasting views of LaRouche. His supporters regard him as a brilliant and original thinker, whereas critics variously see him as a conspiracy theorist, an anti-Semite, a fascist or neo-fascist, and the leader of a political cult. The Heritage Foundation has said that he “leads what may well be one of the strangest political groups in American history.”[2][3] In 1984, LaRouche’s research staff was described by Norman Bailey, a former senior staffer of the National Security Council, as “one of the best private intelligence services in the world.” In 2008, Russian economist Stanislav Menshikov described LaRouche as being “among those few economists who look at the root causes, and therefore see what others cannot see.”

One of the CEC’s big pushes is to introduce a new financial world order – based on the failed Bretton Woods System.

The chief features of the Bretton Woods system were an obligation for each country to adopt a monetary policy that maintained the exchange rate of its currency within a fixed value—plus or minus one percent—in terms of gold and the ability of the IMF to bridge temporary imbalances of payments. In the face of increasing strain, the system collapsed in 1971, following the United States‘ suspension of convertibility from dollars to gold. This created the unique situation whereby the United States dollar became the “reserve currency” for the nation-states which had signed the agreement.

Here are some recent highlights. These are from a recent email titled “Religious Right swaps neo-con crusade for global warming crusade”

“The Flagellants whipped each other to atone for their sins, calling on the populace to repent,” Mr Isherwood said. “Today, we have the Global Warmers whipping our sick economy to death, even during the worst financial crash since the 14th Century! How insane can you get?”“As Executive Intelligence Review magazine has documented, the Religious Right is financed by huge sums of government money laundered through ‘faith-based initiatives,’ with which it has engaged in extensive social engineering to shape elections, etc.”

“Financier Maurice Strong, the Secretary General of the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development, laid out the real intent behind the financial oligarchy’s crusade on global warming in his query: ‘Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialised civilisations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?’

“What we have here, is a financial oligarchy which intends to destroy the economy via draconian measures—such as shutting down farming in the Murray-Darling Basin—to stop a problem which doesn’t exist in the first place, the pre-calculable effects of which will be genocide. Does that count as a sin in Rev. Cizik’s bible?”

And this one ominously titled “Rudd be warned — only LaRouche’s ‘New Bretton Woods’ will avert a dark age”:

“Kevin Rudd had better support Lyndon LaRouche’s prescribed New Bretton Woods measures at the G-20 conference on 15th November in Washington D.C., or he’ll be guilty of contributing to the collapse of Australia, and the world, into a dark age,” CEC National Secretary Craig Isherwood declared today.“If Rudd intends, as it appears, to support Gordon Brown’s British imperial scam to empower the IMF as a world financial dictatorship, but exempt from regulation the largely-British offshore tax havens and their associated hedge funds and derivatives—the cancer of the financial system—it will be a betrayal of Australia’s true interests, to further the City of London’s.”

PR Rule number 3 – Don’t be crazy.

Melting Moments


Oddly compelling protest about climate change.

Conspiracy

Hillary Clinton only has to kill four people – then pardon herself – to be the next President of the United States. The Huffington Post has the order of succession as follows:

PRESIDENTIAL LINE OF SUCCESSION (Obama Administration)

  1. Joe Biden (Vice President and President of Senate)
  2. Nancy Pelosi (Speaker of the House)
  3. Robert Byrd (Senate President Pro Tempore)
  4. Hillary Clinton (State)
  5. Timothy Geithner (Treasury)
  6. Robert Gates (Defense)
  7. Eric Holder (Justice)
  8. TBD (Interior)
  9. TBD (Agriculture)
  10. Bill Richardson (Commerce)

She better watch out though, that Timothy Geithner is a mean looking son of a gun.

When you sing you begin with Do Re Mi

When you want to make big bucks in radio you begin with ABC. It’s a sad fact of life that JJJ, and more broadly the ABC, cultivate 90%* of the media talent in this world, and they all eventually leave.

Roy and HG have had many trists and dalliances with commercial TV through their Olympic broadcasts and the like – but until now have remained true to their radio roots with “This Sporting Life” on JJJ on a Sunday afternoon. But no more. They’re off to the greener pastures of MMM. They did manage to stay there much longer than Merrick and Rosso, or Wil Anderson – and they command respect for that…

But for some reason this makes me angry. I was probably so ingrained by the left leaning creative types at uni that I scream “sell out” every time someone makes money out of their creativity. It’s a hard line to tread. The thing is – even JJJ radio personalities make an exhorbitant amount of money on the professional MC circuit.

Even ABC breakfast radio hosts command more than $10,000 an appearance** – and that’s pretty close to the base rate. Seriously, this is easier than painting some obscure blue poles on canvas. You get 100 of these gigs a year (assuming 1 mid week and 1 a weekend over 52 weeks) and that’s a million bucks. Why you can’t stick to your principles and stay committed to the station that nurtured your talent is beyond me. I guess this is the only way new talent is allowed an opportunity. But I find it all a little mercenary.

*arbitrarily selected figure
** One extroverted mathematician in particular, ex JJJ, we had him up here for a function a while back…

Jupiters stripped bear for charity fundraiser

Today’s Townsville Bulletin carries an unfortunate headline regarding Jupiters’ charity garage sale on the weekend. Apparently they stripped a bear? But it’s ok, it was for charity. Not like that cruel “dancing bears” game they play in India. The humane society is dead against that.

A good analogy

I know Ben hates analogies. This will annoy him. But if Annabel Crabb is my Herald pin up girl then Peter Hartcher is a close second as far as his writing is concerned.

“Rudd has grown attached to his description of the crisis as a result of “extreme capitalism”. That’s akin to saying the Titanic sank because of “extreme sailing”. The US economy and financial markets collapsed not because of the doctrine of capitalism, any more than the Titanic sank because of the practice of international shipping. The cause of the calamity was bad policy, just as the cause of the Titanic’s fate was bad navigating.”

Both Rudd and Turnbull cop a tongue lashing in the piece. Well worth reading.

“Why does it matter what Rudd calls it? Because from the diagnosis comes the cure. The fault was not capitalism, extreme or lame. It was bad policy.

As for Malcolm Turnbull, he has made some sensible suggestions on how the Government should respond to the crisis, but the one he made this week is not one of them. Turnbull claims the Government must not allow a budget deficit. Already, Rudd has used half the projected budget surplus for this fiscal year as apackage to stimulate growth.”

Bach off

This is the best work of the 2008 Walkley awards best headline winner Rob Mills. It’s good – but I think the real gem came from one of the other nominees. I’d like to know on what basis these were selected. The winners announcement says:

“Knowing what makes a good headline is instinctive and ethereal rather than formulaic, but Mills prefers to use humour to grab readers’ attention. These headlines, from politics to the arts, shimmer with lively puns and pop-culture references. They are layered, lithe and fresh.”

Here’s the complete list of nominees and their submissions:Headings
Rick FeneleyThe Sydney Morning Herald,
“The felonious monk and his trail of lies”
“Welcome to the CBD: all arteries, no pulse”
“Della in the freezer”

Rob MillsThe Sydney Morning Herald,
“Bach from the dead: fresh portrait of a decomposer”
“Yes, I did inhale: Liberal leader admits sniffing staffer’s chair”
“Dear me: Della penned Iguanas letter”

David WinterThe Monthly,
“It’s Bennelong time”
“The great pretender”
“From Mandarin to top banana”

My favourite by far is the last one. I even bought the magazine in question thanks to that stunning cover headline. I do like the Bach one though.

K-Ruddy Year

A year on, K-Rudd hasn’t grown on me. He’s still a triumph of symbolism over substance. What has he done? Not much. Annabel Crabb, still my favourite political commentator, obtusely reviewed his year in office… complete with Shakespeare reference. I’m still in awe of her. She is brilliant.

And then, in a story on his dropping the d word – “defecit” in parliament yesterday – highlighted this little gem from the PM’s first post trip question time…

As he arrived for question Time, at 2pm, the Prime Minister scanned the Opposition front bench and performed a double-take when he espied the employment spokesman, Andrew Southcott, whose Movember moustache has survived a sickly infancy to become a luxuriant ornament to his upper lip. Noticing the PM’s surprise, Mr Southcott told him: “I grew it – while you were away.”

The comment was a palpable hit; even the row of disciplined countenances along the Government’s front bench betrayed the odd appreciative smirk.

Anyway, a year of Labor in power. Interest rates have plunged – which would be a good thing, if they hadn’t been raised first. But in isolation it’s quite a positive – shame about the rest of the economy – and the deficit… politically a bad move, given a budget surplus is generally understood by the population as being a marker of successful fiscal managment. I think a deficit is not necessarily a bad thing – provided it’s contained to spending on infrastructure. What’s the repo man going to do? Take away our roads and ports? The rest of the population is happy to borrow beyond its means to finance a lifestyle and to invest – why isn’t that thinking extended to the government? Anyway, Rudd will have to be prepared to die by a sword of his own making – given that he promised a surplus budget. The Coalition will no doubt continue hammering the fact that they paid off Labor’s debts and they do still have a reputation of economic management – conveniently the Global Economic Crisis really began to be noticed under Rudd’s watch, and there blame will be apportioned. The global economy is largely out of governmental control. I’m more interested in Rudd’s bad policy moves in emissions trading and other decisions that will ultimately cost jobs and make us less competitive – and the fact that he’s the most boring Prime Minister in the world with a massive reliance on cliche and cheap buzz phrases like “a bridge too far.”